Taking Threat Seriously: Prejudice,Principle, and Attitudes Toward Racial Policies

Drawing from group theories of race-related attitudes and electoral politics, we develop and test how anxiety influences the relative weight of prejudice as a determinant of individuals’ support for racial policies. We hypothesize that prejudice will more strongly influence the racial policy preferences of people who are feeling anxious than it will for people who are not. Using an experimental design we manipulate subjects’ levels of threat and find significant treatment effects, as hypothesized. We find that individuals’ racial policy attitudes are partially conditional on their affective states: individuals who feel anxious report less support for racial policies than those individuals who do not feel anxious, even when this threat is stimulated by non-racial content. More broadly, we conclude that affect is central to a better understanding of individuals’ political attitudes and behaviors.     

Authoritarian Attitudes, Democracy, and Policy Preferences among Latin American Elites

This article examines the prevalence and consequences of authoritarian attitudes among elites in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. We focus on the connection between antidemocratic elite attitudes and support for democracy; the causes and effects of authoritarian attitudes among elites and their implications for authoritarianism; and the impact of authoritarian attitudes beyond social policy preferences to other policy areas that have indirect implications for order. Contrary to some of the literature, we find that antidemocratic attitudes affect elites' support for democracy. Our analysis also speaks to the debate on the origins of authoritarianism. Much of the evidence supports Altemeyer's notion that perceived threat raises levels of authoritarianism, rather than Feldman's contention that threat strengthens the influence of authoritarian attitudes. Finally, we demonstrate that there is a broader influence of authoritarian attitudes on economic policy preferences, but only where those policies appear to have implications for social order.     

Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Consistency in the Influence of Values and Attitudes Over Time and Across Specific Policy Alternatives

This study examines the factors that explain public preferences for a set of climate change policy alternatives. While scholarly work indicates a relationship between attitudes and values on views toward specific issues, the literature often examines general support for issues rather than specific policy proposals. Consequently, it is unclear the extent to which these attitudes and values affect specific policy considerations. This project examines public support for five climate change policy options in two national surveys taken three years apart. The empirical analysis reveals that time is a factor and that those who are liberal, have strong ecological values, report greater concern for climate change, and trust experts are consistently more supportive of the climate policy options considered here. The results shed new light on the nuanced views of the American public toward climate change.     

POLICY RESPONSES TO CITIZEN ATTITUDES

Though many studies have provided only limited support for the idea of policymaker "responsiveness," the present study indicates that constituents do have some impact on public policy decisions, though not directly. With the aid of data on decisionmaking of country property appraisers in Florida, I was able to demonstrate that constituency preferences affect policy decisions indirectly through the effect of decisionmaker attitudes, thus suggesting an intervening model of decisionmaking.
Specifically, I found that constituency tax preferences impacted on property appraiser tax attitude and through it on the property assessment ratio. More importantly, I was able to isolate some of the potential factors which accentuate those relationships posited by an intervening model of decisionmaking. In particular, I found that the more policymakers (the property appraisers) were immersed into their social and political context or engaged in "social interaction" activities the more likely they and their own attitudes were to be influenced by prevailing constituency tax sentiment.     

Self-Interest, Ideological/Symbolic Politics, and Citizen Characteristics: A Cross-National Analysis of Support for Privatization

In this essay, the authors explore attitudes toward government privatization of electric utilities across two sets of nations: developed market economies (DMEs) and transition economies (TEs). They utilize generalized hierarchical linear model to analyze individual attitudes nested within these two groups of polities and discover a wide gap between the DME and TE nations in terms of preferences for privatization, with attitudes in DME nations being far more favorable. Attitudes toward the privatization of electricity are explained by a combination of ideological/symbolic predispositions, self-interest, and citizen values/characteristics. The most consistent variables in the model are the ideological/symbolic predispositions, while the weakest are citizen characteristics/values. In terms of self-interest, the analysis indicates that those who work for the public service or a public firm are more likely than others to oppose the privatization of electricity. In contrast to some public administration literature that asserts well-informed and interested citizens will oppose privatization, the authors find no convincing relationships. Instead, the most educated and politically efficacious citizens, as well as those who have confidence in the way democracy works within their nation, are more prone than others to support privatization of electricity.     

Environmentalism undercover: The environmental dimension of public support for domestic water charges

Research shows that environmental attitudes can affect support for environmentally-beneficial policies. However, it is unclear whether environmental attitudes can influence support for such policies when they are not being primarily framed through an environmental lens. Using data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study, this paper examines the issue using the case of support for the reintroduction of water charges. This was a contentious issue with debate largely focusing on the proposal as an austerity measure, but the proposal also had environmental implications. The results find that while individuals' willingness to prioritise environmental protection over economic growth did not affect their support for water charges, their willingness to make individual sacrifices for the environment did. Moreover, voters’ position on this policy impacted their vote choice. The findings are particularly important given the struggles that governments are facing in implementing environmental taxes and charges.     

A Decision Theoretic Model of Public Opinion: Guns, Butter, and European Common Defense

Why do individuals support the public policies they do? We argue that individuals can have quite sophisticated policy preferences and that not correctly modeling those preferences can lead to critically misspecified empirical models. To substantiate this position we derive and test a decision‐theoretic model that relies upon three critical assumptions: (1) policies affect the provision of multiple goods about which individuals care; (2) individuals have diminishing returns to scale in those goods; and (3) preferences over at least some subset of those goods are correlated. Using this model, we demonstrate that arbitrarily small secondary policy effects can confound predictions over primary policy effects. Thus, not considering even arbitrarily small policy effects can cause one to conclude that evidence is consistent with one's theory when in fact it is inconsistent or vice versa. Testing this theory on support for forming a European common defense, we find evidence consistent with our model.     

Attitude Responsiveness and Partisan Bias: Direct Experience with the Affordable Care Act

This study evaluates the competing influences of motivated reasoning and personal experience on policy preferences toward the Affordable Care Act. Using cross-sectional and panel survey data, the findings reveal that healthcare attitudes are responsive to information that individuals receive through personal experience. Individuals who experienced a positive change in their insurance situation are found to express more positive views toward the health reform law, while individuals who lost their insurance or experienced an otherwise negative personal impact on their insurance situations express more negative views. The results point to personal experience as a source of information that can influence individuals’ preferences. However, although attitudes are responsive to the quality of one’s personal interactions with the healthcare system, the results also suggest that partisan bias is still at work. Republicans are more likely to blame the health reform law for negative changes in their health insurance situations, while Democrats are more likely to credit the law for positive changes in their situations. These motivated attributions for their personal situations temper how responsive partisans’ attitudes are to information acquired through personal experience.     

Explaining Explanations: How Legislators Explain their Policy Positions and How Citizens React

Legislators claim that how they explain their votes matters as much as or more than the roll calls themselves. However, few studies have systematically examined legislators’ explanations and citizen attitudes in response to these explanations. We theorize that legislators strategically tailor explanations to constituents in order to compensate for policy choices that are incongruent with constituent preferences, and to reinforce policy choices that are congruent. We conduct a within‐subjects field experiment using U.S. senators as subjects to test this hypothesis. We then conduct a between‐subjects survey experiment of ordinary people to see how they react to the explanatory strategies used by senators in the field experiment. We find that most senators tailor their explanations to their audiences, and that these tailored explanations are effective at currying support—especially among people who disagree with the legislators’ roll‐call positions.     

Global warming and sustainability: Understanding the beliefs of marketing faculty

Addressing climate change and sustainability topics in university research and teaching is paramount; however, the majority of marketing studies and courses do not examine these concepts. We investigate global warming beliefs and the sustainability values, attitudes, and beliefs of marketing faculty to understand how these may impact upon the state of sustainability research and teaching within the marketing academy. Using an online survey method, marketing faculty were surveyed from around the world. We found that belief in global warming was high and that this was affected by political ideology and research area. We also found broad perceptions of sustainability (i.e., beyond the environmental domain) in marketing faculty, possibly more so than previous higher education studies have revealed. However, a greater belief in market ideology to solve sustainability issues also exists. We found significant effects or associations between gender, political ideology, religion, expertise, region of current residence, and region of conferred highest degree on sustainability beliefs (definition, conception, and attitudes). Considering that we find a high belief in global warming and a broad and holistic understanding and positive attitude towards sustainability, questions remain about why only limited research and teaching has been done on the intersection between marketing and sustainability.     

Authoritarianism,Threat, and Americans’ Support for the War on Terror

In the years following 9/11, surveys have revealed high levels of public support for policies related to the war on terror that, many argue, contravene long‐standing American ideals. Extant research would suggest that such preferences result from the activation of authoritarianism. That is, the terrorist attacks caused those predisposed toward intolerance and aggression to become even more intolerant and aggressive. However, using data from two national surveys, we find that those who score high in authoritarianism do not become more hawkish or less supportive of civil liberties in response to perceived threat from terrorism; they tend to have such preferences even in the absence of threat. Instead, those who are less authoritarian adopt more restrictive and aggressive policy stands when they perceive threat from terrorism. In other words, many average Americans become susceptible to “authoritarian thinking” when they perceive a grave threat to their safety.     

When Do the Ends Justify the Means? Evaluating Procedural Fairness

How do people decide whether a political process is fair or unfair? Concerned about principles of justice, people might carefully evaluate procedural fairness based on the facts of the case. Alternately, people could be guided by their prior preferences, endorsing the procedures that produce favored policy outcomes as fair and rating those that generate disliked outcomes as unfair. Using an experimental design, we consider the conditions under which people use accuracy goals versus directional goals in evaluating political processes. We find that when procedures are clearly fair or unfair, people make unbiased assessments of procedural justice. When the fairness of a process is ambiguous, people are more likely to use their prior attitudes as a guide.     

If I'll win it,I want it: The role of instrumental considerations in explaining public support for referendums

Across established democracies, citizens express high levels of support for decision making via referendums. What drives these preferences remains yet unclear. In this article it is argued that, first, process preferences are less stable than previously assumed but vary substantially across policy proposals. Second, it is suggested that instrumental considerations play an important role in shaping citizens’ preferences for referendums. Specifically, citizens who favour the policy proposal or believe that they hold a majority opinion are expected to express more support for the use of referendums. An original survey was designed and conducted in the Netherlands (N = 1,289) that contains both between and within respondent variation across a range of policy proposals. The findings support these arguments: Both the desire for a specific policy change and the perception of being in the majority with one's policy preference relate to support for the use of referendums across policy proposals, levels of governance, and between and within respondents. This study contributes to a better understanding of process preferences by showing that these preferences have a non-stable component and that instrumental considerations play an important role in citizens’ support for referendums.     

Regulatory Stringency, Green Production Offsets, and Organizations' Financial Performance

Some scholars have argued that environmental regulatory pressures constrain organizations' financial opportunities, while others maintain that environmental regulations can spur product and technology innovations and encourage greater operational efficiencies. Advocates on both sides have evidence in support of their positions. However, considering both perspectives in tandem and recognizing that other factors may be associated with improved financial performance, we may find that neither position is valid, or that both are. Relying on data for manufacturing facilities in seven countries, this study shows that more stringent environmental policy regimes are related to diminished firm profits. Yet organizations that are motivated by a green production focus—defined as enhancing internal efficiencies and new product and technology development—are more likely to improve their environmental performance. They also demonstrate a greater probability of benefiting financially, thereby offsetting the cost of regulation or accruing a net gain.     

Instrumental political support: bringing policy preferences back into explanations of EU support

There is a joint development towards Europeanisation of public policies and an increasing visibility and politicisation of European issues in EU member states. In this context, the degree of fit between individuals’ policy preferences and European norms could be expected to influence support for the EU: this support might increase when Europeanisation makes the desired policies more likely, and decrease when it hinders these policies. Multilevel analyses of the 2014 wave of the European Election Study confirms the existence of such instrumental support for the EU. The findings demonstrate that this support is shaped by policy preferences on state intervention, immigration, moral issues and environmental protection. The results also show that the impact of these policy preferences is modulated by the level of integration of the designated policy, by the weight of the policy issue in the country and, in some cases, by the level of individual political knowledge.     

Shaping Local Councillor Preferences: Party Politics,Committee Structure and Social Background1

The preferences of politicians are crucial in a representative democracy. In order to change policy, voters must elect politicians who prefer to do so. Party affiliation may signal preferences to voters, but preferences are also shaped by institutional factors, such as committee membership and social background. This article assesses whether political, institutional or social background explanations best explain spending preferences, based on a survey of 1,200 Danish municipal councillors. Simulations of the relative effect of such variables show that party membership is the most important explanation of spending preferences. Social background, including age, gender, occupation and education, has limited impact, but female, young and better-educated politicians are likely to prefer higher spending. The committee structure is more important. Standing committee membership and seniority have a substantial positive effect on preferences. Although spending advocacy does exist, guardians are harder to find. Even though the members of the economic committee are responsible for the overall economic situation, spending preferences among these politicians are not systematically different.     

Floating policy voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Much of the political science literature is skeptical that issue content matters for presidential voting behavior, with partisanship, social identity, and group attitudes providing the vast majority of explanatory power for two-party vote choice at the individual level. This literature stands in contrast with work on issue cross-pressuring, which argues that voters who disagree with their party on salient issues they care about are more likely to either vote for the opposing party's candidate or not participate in the two-party contest at all. Using the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project's 2016 survey, which includes within-subject responses from early June and November–December of 2016, I find support for both of these literatures in the context of the 2016 presidential election. Group attitudes, particularly with respect to race, were strongly associated with changes in voting behavior between 2012 and 2016. However, some voters, in some cases, seem to have deviated from their 2012 voting behavior based on policy issues they considered important to their vote. While issue cross-pressuring as measurable on the 2016 CCAP was relatively rare, I find that those who were cross-pressured were significantly more likely to change their voting behavior in 2016 relative to 2012.     

Vaccine alliance building blocks: a conjoint experiment on popular support for international COVID-19 cooperation formats

The design principles of institutions that visibly and significantly affect citizens’ lives are likely to be politically salient. Popular support for these principles is in turn crucial for institutional viability and effectiveness. Transboundary pandemics are a case in point. Understanding citizens’ preferences regarding the design of international alliances set up to mass-produce and distribute vaccines is likely to determine citizens’ subsequent cooperation with vaccination campaigns. This study explores Germans’ preferences for international COVID-19 vaccine alliance design principles. We conducted a conjoint experiment at a recurring cognitive moment in many pandemics’ cycles, between the initial outbreak and a more devastating but still-unknown second wave, when infection rates were very low, yet no policy solutions had been developed. We analyzed preferences regarding four building blocks: (1) alliance composition (size; EU-centrism), (2) alliance distribution rules (joining cost; vaccine allocation), (3) vaccine nationalism (cost per German household; coverage in Germany) and (4) vaccine producer confidence (origin; type). Distribution rules, political ideology and personal perceptions of pandemic threat matter little. But a larger alliance size and dominant EU-country composition increase alliance support. And vaccine nationalism is key: support increases with both lower costs and larger coverage for own-nation citizens. Moreover, support goes down for Chinese and American producers and increases for Swiss and especially own-nation producers. In sum, a realist and technocratic outlook is warranted at the cognitive stage in pandemic cycles when no solutions have been found, yet the worst already seems to be over, as national self-interest reigns supreme in popular attitudes.

     

Changing Sides or Changing Minds? Party Identification and Policy Preferences in the American Electorate

Scholars have long debated the individual-level relationship between partisanship and policy preferences. We argue that partisanship and issue attitudes cause changes in each other, but the pattern of influence varies systematically. Issue-based change in party identification should occur among individuals who are aware of party differences on an issue and find that issue to be salient. Individuals who are aware of party differences, but do not attach importance to the issue, should evidence party-based issue change. Those lacking awareness of party differences on an issue should show neither effect. We test our account by examining individuals' party identifications and their attitudes on abortion, government spending and provision of services, and government help for African Americans using the 1992-94-96 National Election Study panel study, finding strong support for our argument. We discuss the implications of our findings both for the microlevel study of party identification and the macrolevel analysis of partisan change.     

Policy preferences and ministerial structures: Immigrant integration governance in Western Europe, 1997–2017

This article tests an often‐stated assumption in the “machinery of government” literature: that government parties’ issue and policy preferences affect the ministerial structure. Using a new Dataset on Immigrant Integration Governance (DIIG) that documents the ministerial structure of immigrant integration in 16 Western European countries during 1997–2017, the analysis finds that divergence and change characterize the ministerial structure. The analysis finds that right‐oriented governments are more inclined to couple integration with immigration and justice than are left‐oriented governments, indicating different policy preferences. However, it does not find that governments with radical parties are more inclined to signal “integration” in ministerial titles. The study's comparative approach challenges the generalizability of existing knowledge on drivers of ministerial changes. Additionally, it fills a gap in current immigrant integration literature: the study of the horizontal governance structure.